I am having a hard time understanding the use of the term Macedonians... Macedonia was a Greek Kingdom in the Northern Greece. Using the term collectively for the populations occupying the area during the Ottoman period is historically and politically deceiving. Since you live in the great country called United Kingdom you might benefit from getting your facts right from Professor Robin Lane of Oxford University.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55tGPVKi3rw

Macedonia is the name of a region. Most famous Macedonian was Alexander. Historically this was a country of Greek culture but it is not clear which language the ancient Macedonians actually spoke.

Today people live there, and they name themselves after the land they live. The British speak a germanic language, which was not the language ancient Britons spoke, but they still call themselves British. Same in Macedonia.

The Greek problem is, this region was invaded by Modern Greece in 1912 and had at that point few Greeks actually living there. The population were Turks, Jews, Slavs and Albanians.

After deporting the natives and settling Greeks there it has its present ethnic composition.

Greesk get so excited probably because they understand the limited legitimacy of their rule.

This is a bunch of malarkey. Macedonians spoke and wrote Greek.
Alexander's teacher was Aristoteles. Major proof of their Greek heritage is that they took part in the Olympic Games, which at the time were exclusively for Greeks. Also your comment about Modern Greeks ''invading'' the region is untrue since the Greeks were a major portion of the populations in the region and the majority in places like Thessalonika. It was a succesful liberating struggle. History speaks loud and clear.... if you can read it. I will not go into myths about Albanian lost national territories or any other Balkan nation's. What is done is done.
Respectfully,

Our difference my friend is that when I go there I can actually read the ancient Greek inscriptions that state how the city got it's name/All variations of the city's name derive from the original (and current) appellation in Greek: Θεσσαλονίκη (from Θεσσαλός, Thessalos, and Νίκη, Nike), literally translating to "Thessalian Victory" and in origin the name of a princess, Thessalonike of Macedon, who was named so because she was born on the day of the Macedonian victory at the Battle of Crocus Field. You cannot, because you probably speak Turkish.
uring the Ottoman period, the city's Muslim and Jewish population grew. By 1478 Selânik (سلانیك), as the city came to be known in Ottoman Turkish, had a population of 4,320 Muslims, 6,094 Greek Orthodox and some Catholics, but no Jews. Soon after the turn of the 15th to 16th century, nearly 20,000 Sephardic Jews had immigrated to Greece from Spain following their expulsion.[60] By ca. 1500, the numbers had grown to 7,986 Greeks, 8,575 Muslims, and 3,770 Jews. By 1519, Sephardic Jews numbered 15,715, 54% of the city's population. Some historians consider the Ottoman regime's invitation to the Jews was a strategy to prevent the ethnic Greek population (Eastern Orthodox Christians) from dominating the city.

reading inscriptions does dot legitimate invading a place which has had other people livinge there from 1500 years and butchering them. I realize that Greek nationalism legitimates itself as the rebirth of Ancient Greece. But this is wrong.

Greek was an international language and over the millenia assimilated people which had nothing to do with the initial Greeks.

Islam is an international religion which over 1400 years assimilated a lot of people whose ancestors had been Greek.

Modern Greece is a Church state which has butchered a lot of people whose ancestors had been "Greek".

I am just giving you the facts here...which are far from your assumptions. I am not a nationalist but that doesn't mean I am ok with Neo-Ottomanism or falsifying history. Modern Greece has many flaws but has nothing to do with a church state.

Greeks are full of feces and they do not understand the limited legitimacy of their rule. What small nation with outright dubious moral character and with an even smaller territory, has the audacity to lecture the rest of Europe in history? Greeks did not invent history. Greeks invented themselves.
Care to know what ancient historians wrote to differentiate Macedonians from Greeks? Your country is like Saudi Arabia of Europe. No other country bans BOOKS!
Diodorus:
[3] The Macedonians and Alexander backed Coragus because he was one of them while the Greeks favored Dioxippus. 17.100.4.
[6] From Europe, the Greek cities AND the Macedonians also sent embassies, as well as the Illyrians and most of those who dwell about the Adriatic Sea, the Thracian peoples and even those of their neighbors the Gauls, whose people became known then first in the Greek world. 17.113.2.
[7] When Perdiccas heard of the revolt of the Greeks, he drew by lot from the Macedonians 3000 infantry and 800 horsemen. 18.7.3
there is more where this came from so hold your tongue.

Julius Moore, and you were there to hear how they spoke?
[1] Quintus Curtius Rufus "The History of Alexander"
"Alexander the Great speaks in front of the Macedones of his army: "The Macedonians are going to judge your case," he said. "Please state whether you will use your native language before them."
Philotas: "Besides the Macedonians, there are many present who, I think, will find what I am going to say easier to understand if I use the language you yourself have been using, your purpose, I believe, being only to enable more people to understand you."
Then the king said: "Do you see how offensive Philotas find even his native language? He alone feels an aversion to learning it. But let him speak as he pleases - only remember he as contemptuous of our way of life as he is of our language". [p.138]
I am not going to go into the nature of that Macedonian language for treats like that deserve to be saved for last. It is things as such you are afraid of the most. When Macedonia enters EU we will have access to academia and the case will be made there. You will be stripped naked of your lies.

Eumenes of Cardia. In 321 B.C., Greek commander Ambiance, with cavalry and light arms only, faced the Macedonian noble, Neoptholemus, with the Macedonian phalanx. To avoid battle Xennias, a man whose speech was Macedonian, was sent by Eumenes to negotiate with the commander of the phalanx. Badian analyzes:

"Now, Xennias' name at once shows him to be a Macedonian. Since he was in Ambiance entourage he was presumably a Macedonian of superior status, who spoke both standard Greek and his native language. He was the man who could be trusted to transmit Ambiance' message. This clearly shows that the phalanx had to be addressed in Macedonian, if one wanted to be sure (as Ambiance certainly did) that they would understand. And almost equally interesting - he did not address them himself, as he and other commanders normally address soldiers who understood them, nor did he sent a Greek. The suggestion is surely that Macedonian was the language of the infantry and that Greek was a difficult, indeed a foreign language to them. We may thus take it as certain that, when Alexander used Macedonian in addressing his guards, that too was because it was their normal language, and because (like Ambiance) he had to be sure he would be understood".

1) where is that from
2) one source proves nothing
3) There was no Greek or macedonian language in antiguity but different dialects, Attic Laconic Cretan Macedonian etc all of them where Greek dialects however dialects of a doric or ionic or aiolic origin were not easily understood by people speaking a dialect belonging to a different branch

So what that is like saying that an Austrian prefered to address his fellow Austrians in Austrian German or even Styrian German instead of High German the language of German academia. Which makes sense since the soldiers would not have been educated in classical philosophy whose dialect was Attic of the ionic branch. They are not lies and you will never become a member of the EU because we will be there to veto you, us and the Cypriots and the Spanish and our other Allies you will never access resources because FYROM is pathecially impoverished, truly never in modern history the valley of the Vardar presented any economic accomplishes. The fact that you wish to join the EU to cause conflict and defeat Greece is riddiculous you quoted a Roman why don't you quote the letter Alexander sent to his Macedonian tutor the great philosopher Aristotle? Why don't you quote his speech in front of the Assembly of Corinth (II I was under Philip) Actually mr ''Macedonian'' nationalist what is your opinion of that Assembly i mean why would a foreign king try to unite the Greeks and campaign against the common enemy ? Also you ve no idea what you are talking about there was no single Greek language and there still is not one and whatever you want to claim ancient Macedonians were not Slavic speakers you tried to be sarcastic in the beggining of your answer and then you quoted a roman source that was written centuries after alexander's death ..... I was there when sculpture were unearthed, when επιτυμβια αναθηματα were unearthead in kastoria from the era of alexander and philip since you know what the macedonians spoke and all that rubbish you propably know what that means, i know that i was able to read what was written on those objects and understand also i was able to connect Aμυντας Αιολος Αιας are names still common in Greece and they are the three most common Macedonian names (alexander was not that popular despite what people today may think)

and ofc that guy was not alexander's contemporary he wrote his stuff over 4 centuries after alexander was dust but ofc referencing using a poor mixture of harvard and chicago system and commas makes it all fine ..... i wonder whether FYROM will exist in any form in 4 centuries and if anyone will ever bother remembering it ever existed ( i mean no offence nobody remembers the kingdom of the avars or dacia and they made it for quite a while, i mean you people have had a state for 2 decades also i d like to give you a piece of friendly advice stop now that it is early if geopolitical revisionism comes back to the balkans not only you will not ''regain'' Solun and have the chance to practise your respect for the human rights of minorities or in this case 100% majority of the Greek population but you will be wiped out from the map by Albania and Bulgaria with the tacit support of athens so be careful you are a little young lamb in a cage of lions dont go out there punching knives i know you are all hot with this idea of having the youngest nationalism in europe but i) you are over 2centuries late 2) it wont do you any good your neighbours have had proper armies for almost 2 centuries and large economies we are going through a crisis now you were always in crisis and if you keep making irridentist claims instead of build your country you ll never prosper

Little is known about the native Balkan languages of Alexanders time. Macedonian might have been a Greek dialect, or with the same probability Bulgarian or Turkish. Strabon talks endlessly of the languages spoken in his time in East Rome, they were not Greek.

Intriguingly he seems to be saying that one language is understood in all countries around the Black sea. The only language understood in all lands around the Black Sea is Turkish.

But then it was probably a language related to Albanian, the still existing native Balkan language.

It would be good for Turkey if Greece tries to wipe out Macedonia. Europe is already angry with Greece for not repaying her debts, if she starts yet one more war, she would be the most hated country in Europe.

1) where is that from
-http://www.historyofmacedonia.org/AncientMacedonia/AncientEvidence.html

2) one source proves nothing
- there are 22 of the most notable ancient historians in the link.

3) There was no Greek or macedonian language in antiguity but different dialects, Attic Laconic Cretan Macedonian etc all of them where Greek dialects however dialects of a doric or ionic or aiolic origin were not easily understood by people speaking a dialect belonging to a different branch

-Why did Hellenes consider Macedonians barbarians? Seemingly you know Greek history so you would know this term means "non greeks".

File, you must pay a litle much atention to myths because there is much more truth there than where you read.
In the 1990s I went in Greece walking through the mountains, so did 1 milion of Albanian only in that period and many of them will become Grek. But when I arrived there, almost evrywere I was employed, they, the greks,talked to me in arvanitiko language (albanian). I noticed as I lived there that, in this families, the grandparent hardly speak some word in helenika,the parents speak both languages and the children hardly speak some word in albanian so I had to translate when a grandparent talked to his niece.
This fllow(like that of 1990s)of albanian/arber/ilirian/pellazg people has been repeated many times through the history in the same direction,from the mountains to the fields and the coast. This people have always find there their more civil brothers who call themselves Grek.
Thus, my friend, the albanian people do make the History but they do not write it because they were fighters not writers so what you read is what church people had write for us. But the real history is still to be writen.
Respectfully

File, you must pay a litle much atention to myths because there is much more truth there than where you read.
In the 1990s I went in Greece walking through the mountains, so did 1 milion of Albanian only in that period and many of them will become Grek. But when I arrived there, almost evrywere I was employed, they, the greks,talked to me in arvanitiko language (albanian). I noticed as I lived there that, in this families, the grandparent hardly speak some word in helenika,the parents speak both languages and the children hardly speak some word in albanian so I had to translate when a grandparent talked to his niece.
This fllow(like that of 1990s)of albanian/arber/ilirian/pellazg people has been repeated many times through the history in the same direction,from the mountains to the fields and the coast. This people have always find there their more civil brothers who call themselves Grek.
Thus, my friend, the albanian people do make the History but they do not write it because they were fighters not writers so what you read is what church men had write for us. But the real history is still to be writen.
Respectfully

Greece did remember the heros fought in the Balkan wars, Parades and celebrations took place all around Macedonia, including majestic events in Thessaloniki and Ioannina. I would also like to mention the absense of Greece and Romania from the article. The Balkan wars were not all about Albanians in Kosovo or Bulgarians expanding way beyond their capabilities. Get your facts right economisy

i know man we always made the albanians and the slav inhabitants of north western macedonia and vardaria fight, i mean 1490, 1770s, 1821, 1896, 1912, 1913, 1919,1922, 1940, 1974 somehow we managed to convince other nationalities who btw hate us to fight in all those conflicts and more just through our power to convince

I am not talking about revolts, I am talking about wars. Real wars. Like the war of your independence fought by England, France and Russia. You can't say it with a straight face that Greeks won this war for themselves.

Indeed England,France and Russia helped Greeks in their war of independence against the Ottoman Empire,but it was the Ottomans who first request help from the Egyptians in order to suppress the Greek revolt.

Roman history mentions Bulgarians in the 4th century. These were Volga-Bulgars, a Turkish speaking people. As their descendants, the Chuwash still do. Bulgar was the name of a city in present day Tataristan, another Turkish speaking country.

listen mate i m not going to argue with you, i will not waste my time debating with a fanatic and obviously the whole of the world is muslim (and became such through peaceful means) so i am sorry the rest of us exist and deny you the opportunity to have an islamic republic/state or whatever you want to call it in the middle of eastern europe/north america/wetern europe/china etc.

Actually the Turks in the Balkans were Christians for 1000 years before the majority became Moslems.

The Gagauz Turks are still Christians.

Krymchaks are ethnic Turks of Jewish faith, based in Crimea.

The Islamisation of the Balkans happended at the same historical period as the Christianisation of Eastern Europe. In Bulgaris, it was one group of Turks giving another group of Turks the opportunity to become Moslems.

The fact that the pres-islamic religions of the Balkans survived wheras the pre-Christian religions in the rest of Europe did not demonstrates the fact that Islamisation was indeed voluntary.

well i do same as across the atlantic look up Islam UK, however just to note i m not against muslims, had this article been about the marginalisation of muslims in africa by christian minorities i would be dissing the christians big time regardless of my religious affiliations

Let me ask you one thing. If from 14th till 19th century the Ottoman Turks gave "opportunity" to the Bulgars to become Muslim, then why are you so pissed about the Bulgars giving "oportunity" back to the Turks like you to become Christian again for the last 150 years?

You are a liar. Bulgarians have adopted Christianity in 865 year when their ruler was Tsar Boris I. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_I_of_Bulgaria )
In the 14 century Turks attacking a pure Christian state – Bulgaria. The Ottoman Turks forced Christians to convert to Islam and so 500 years. In general without success.

Lets say that in the 4th century there are Turkish speaking Bulgars. How did they get to either Tatarstan or the Balkans from their Central Asian place of origin, teleportation? Turks were nomadic conquerors, just like the Slavs before them. Just like the slavs the Turks whipped out some people and assimilated some others. But unfortunately for Turks, they converted to the wrong religion and ultimately were expelled from a number of regions they dominated.

That is right and wrong. A large part of the population of the 100% Christian Bulgar state spoke Turkish. Even today, the Turkish seaking regions in the Balkans are all the territory of the mediaeval Bulgar Kingdom. These people have been there since the 4th century.

Your sense of humour is strange at least or rather brain-washed!
The Bulgarians have nothing to do with the so called Bulgars from the early middle ages in the region north/north-east of Black sea.
The part/10-20thousands!?/ of so called proto-Bulgarians or Bulgars "emmigrated" to the present territory of Bulgaria early 7th century just in time before the the region abovesaid was muslimised.And they were a minority among the numerous Slavic tribes in their "new land".and so on....and Bulgarian Kingdom was the first in Eastern Europe to accept Christianity-the so called East/Greek Orthodox from Byzantium .....read the proper history and not the Turkish bla-bla.
Just one example- what about calling the French Germans, though Frankreich, the Franks being a German tribe and left their name for France, the French being Gauls romanised! So the Bulgarians are the Gauls and the Bulgars the Franks.Thats it, enough for now.

Volga Bulgaria started in 7 - 8th century my man! The 4th century document you are on about is about the Kutrigurs and Ongurs, who were bolgar tribes who fought each other. Much later the victors of those conflicts established Old Great Bulgaria, which then split up during the invasion of the Khazars. Finally the off-shoots of that state established new kingdoms along Volga, Along Danube, and some of them after mixing with the Avars arrived in modern day Macedonia.

Btw the modern genetic analysis hasn't been able to find a trace of bolgar DNA in the the modern Bulgarian population - to this day. Genetically the Volga bolgars have left a trace in the Russian regions of Chuvachia and Tatarstan (which is why the serbs are so keen on calling the balkan bulgarians "tatars")

However all that the bolgars did in the balkans was to establish a powerful medieval state which had a single official slavic language, single christian religion, single official slavic alphabet. They unified a mixture of different peoples, languages and religions into a coherent state. The name bulgarians remained as an ethnic reference to a particular group of people in the balkans, who lived through the entire 500 years of Turkish occupation/domination/yoke... and are still there today...

Before the Falkland Island War, Britain had been considering nudging the islands to accept some sort of arrangement with Argentina, so nudging away of Argentina by Americans would have been inappropriate. Help (in the form of intelligence support) had to be provided quietly, once Britain made up its mind it really wanted the place.

and not a single reference to the hundreds of thousands of Turkish residents driven out of their homelands and lost their properties.
I guess you have to be an Armenian or Greek to become a victim.
One third of modern Turkey's population has their roots in Balkans,Greece, Caucaus and Middle East. Yet for some people we are the only criminal of last century

Check out the Turkish Review, Vol.2 Issue 5, Sep.-Oct.2012, on pg.102 there is a survey conducted in 2012 across 8 Balkan countries on perceptions and their sentiments towards Turkey..no worries, sentiments are more than positive.

yes you are and not only for the 19th and 20th but also the 21st century, in the eyes of everyone in the world except for some of your arab friends and clearly belgrade crete and athens are turkish cities ofc i mean why would i be called a byased ignoramous by saying so after all everything is turkish in the balkans but there is a conspiracy of bad bad bad bad slavs greeks and albanians that took over places such as patras sofia and tirane from their rightous owner........

The author fails to mention that the Balkan wars did not have only one objective. Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia coalesced not only to drive the Ottoman empire out from the Balkans but also to divide Macedonia between each other. Many Macedonians were enlisted in these armies to the detriment of their own freedom.

Who did what right after 1945 ("the liberation", "the communist revolution" are some of the terms used) is still (or shall I say more and more) a major topic and a way to energize crowds (make people hate one another) in some parts of the Balkans. We say we have the largest forests here because combatants from that era still seem to be popping out of them - even though most of them are way too young to have been around in 1945.

If it weren't for the 500 years of turkish occupations, these Balkan wars would have taken place a lot earlier during the course of Balkan history.
Matters would have been settled since a long time ago and everybody calm, but the region and these conflitcts were freezed by the turks till the 20th century.

"Matters would have been settled since a long time ago and everybody calm, but the region and these conflitcts were freezed by the turks till the 20th century."
Highly improbable. The Pan-slavic threat of the Russian Empire actually grew stronger in the early 20th cent. at least until Lenin emerged with his propaganda of the rights of smaller nations to secession. (Read Lenin's 1914 "The right of Nations to National Self-determination").

There was also a Czech historian, Frantisek Palacky, who advocated "Austro-Slavism" that included different versions of "United States of Greater Austria" based on 'supra-national' community of small nations seeking to protect themselves from both German and Russian imperialism.

" Commemorations of the centenary in the region have been surprisingly low-key. In some places it did not occur to anyone to do anything, in others, such as Greece, which has had a few events, it is perhaps because there is not much money to do anything, although the Greeks are issuing two commemorative €100 gold coins". OMG, this paragraph is reef with fallacies. Mr. TJ, if you are not fully aware of the critical events, that reshaped the future of S.E.E, don't write anything because your argument as it stands, distorts the reality. However, we are experiencing straitened times, we know how to rever our progenitors. So, in 28th of October, we celebrated the "Liberation from Ottomans"(3 days: Celebrations, parades and flag hoisting). This battle was critical because Bulgarians were also willing to conquer Thesaloniki, a vital region with historical resonance, because it was the epicentre of reknown Macedonia. In order to avoid interpretations, what USA regards as MACEDONIA, is called Fyrom (Because it was 1/10 of the erstwhile Macedonia of Great Alexander). This article as it stands, is weak; here is video to watch, how we honored our Heroes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meAp5cJRF2Y

Of course you must honor "your" heroes in such fanatical demeanor. The Greek state has been spending millions of dollars to cover up inconsistencies in the creating of its national myth. By appropriating all things Macedonian so vehemently you are just exposing your sore spots.

1) Our National heritage is so sound, that there is no space for inconsistencies. We let also space for doubts, but whatever effort for minimizing our contibution in the humanity, is weak. 2)If you watched the video, and you observed somewhere "fanatical demeanor", implies that you don't have common sense, at all. 3) All things in Nothern Greek are actually MACEDONIAN and "Our" heroes,are maybe your progenitors. So, at least show A LITTLE RESPECT. 4) Last but not least, we have never spent so much money in order to establish our ideas. This was done by Word of mouth. Myriad visitors saw, appreciate and promote THE IDEALS OF Greeks. The 65% of what you google it has GREEK ROOTS, although Google is not a greek company;) !! if we had copyrights revenues in the institutions, ideas and concepts that WE borrow in the humankind, Greece will be the most opulent country across the world.Please study about history, geography, arts and I am always here to resolve your questions, and concerns. !! Have a nice night!

The No. 1 reason no country involved in the Balkan Wars except Serbia is celebrating is that Bulgaria and Greece have kept their share of the spoils. Serbia lost it with the Macedonians finally organizing in the WW2 and becoming equal part of Yugoslavia. Bulgaria is basically ashamed of the amount of losses they incurred in the wars, and Greece is keeping it quiet since they know what they got and don't wanna have anyone ask for a review. The BIGGEST effect of this war was on the ethnic Macedonian population, which was involved in the armies of all three allies in the first Balkan War, believing in their neighbors "best intentions of helping their brothers escape the yarn of the Turks", and then killing each other once they ended on opposing armies with the Second Balkan War. The tragedy is that no one in Europe has the face to even recognize the wrong done and if nothing else, let the people come back to live in their own properties, from which they were expelled through a classical exodus. Europe has no shame.

Macedonians are mentioned in records from prior to the Ottoman empire. As we know, the Ottomans under the Milet system divided the people on Muslims and Christians. They did not care much to appoint national determinants and in their ignorance regarded people by their linguistic traits.

you slavs are hilarious. the people you call "ethnic macedonians" is a made up ethnic group. It is like calling the Turks of Constantinople, "ethnic thracians", because Constantinople is on thrace, or calling "ethnic troyans" the turks that now live in the area of ancient troy. Be proud of your slavic identity and stop pretending to be some ancient historic people, you spend 20% of your budget building ancient greek buildings and statues of Alexander in 2012! So, people of USA are ethnic indians??? hahaha

Let me tell you what is not hilarious. The fact that on your national parliament building the names Banitza and Petzovo are chiseled in STONE. These towns today have Greek toponims: Meliti and Vevi. The joke is on you.

You are deeply confused.
1st of all, today, Greece is full of Macedonians. They (a)live in Macedonian Area (b) Speak continuously since B.C. the same language - Greek (c) Have the same religious beliefs with the rest of the greek territories - olympian gods before Byzantium, Orthodoxy afterwards.
The difference is that you have made up a second group, ethnic macedonians. These people, the slavs, lived in the russian steppes during alexander's era; were at war with byzantium later; after the balkan wars became Yugo-slavia which translates to south slavia. So you were literally throughout historical timeline the enemy of macedonian people. Now you pretend to be Macedonians.

secondly the data/facts you provide are totally out of place and time.
the byzantine thema (=province) of macedonia was in the area of what is today called thrace. A totally different region!http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_%28theme%29 so in the byzantine document you refer to you are probaly talking about other people!
Also, in another of your documents it refers thessalians, another greek province! you are just taking particular greek area names and using them to demonstrate that they are separate ehnic groups! Kingdom of epirus, which is the epirus province today was at BC a kingdom at the left of the kingdom of macedonia. do you see anywhere ethnic epirotans? they are greeks!

Thirdly, look at the roman provinces.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_province does it mention anywhere greece? no! it has been divided into several smaller. one of them is macedonia. You know why? because greece was going to be too big a province for the romans to handle.
Do you know who is plutarch??? he is a famous ancient historian. in his work "parallel lives" he used to compare a roman with a greek. you know who was compared to julius caesar? alexander the great!! look it up. then go home and build a huge statue of alexander, with the hope to create an identity

The Arab Spring is causing HUGE immigration flows to Europe that will be felt for decades and impact all future generatons.
Syria alone sends thousands of war refugees by the month. Now consider Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan for the past decade.
Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Somalia, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Yemen etc, etc.
Sometimes invasions comes not by tanks, battleships, and jets, but by small baby footsteps.
_______________________________
Pacifist, atheist, liberal Europe will slowly turn into the Caliphate.
Call to prayer 5 times a day and Mecca Centered architecture.
The Most Common Baby Boy's name in the UK is Muhummad(with about a dozen various spellings).
IT is similar in Germany, France and The Nederlands.
Study the Israel-Arab Palestine Demographics.
_______________________________
Agnostic Europe rejects Christ.
But ironically will be Muslim within a few generations.
It is simple demographics.

CTD, I agree with you, the horde of refugees who are coming from failed Islamic countries will forever change the face and the history of Europe, but I don’t blame these people, I blame our leftloonie ruling elite.

The problem can easily be resolved with education, strong working practices that reward those who work to supply their families and a responsible social service that apply sensible policies to help small working families that try to live an organized life but don’t have the skills.

Unfortunately we don’t have anything of that and the blame is squarely on the powers that be. Our governments want people, any people, to feed the economy with consumption to generate tax collection to the state and profit to business and if they need to import and subsidise these people then so be it.

”CTD, I agree with you, the horde of refugees who are coming from failed Islamic countries will forever change the face and the history of Europe, but I don’t blame these people, I blame our leftloonie ruling elite.”

Well, armies of successful Islamic countries had conquered both the Iberian and Balkan peninsulae in the past, leaving behind their legacies and a few World Heritage sites along the way. Is it a pure coincidence that the countries embroiled in current round of crisis (Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy) all had at least part of its current territory under Islamic rule?

Driving out the Ottomans was (and still is) universally welcomed by the Balkan Christian states whether it be Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, or Bulgaria.
The fact it's not so widely celebrated is because dealing with current economic hardships takes precedence. TJ has it wrong that "the underwhelming reaction....is no bad thing".
500 years of Ottoman rule should not be forgotten. Its poisonous legacy reminds us all too frequently.

The poison in the Balkan legacy is fascistic nationalism.
Nationalism has been the bane of the Balkans and is the bane of European Union.
The wholescale ethnic cleansing of Muslims, required for ''liberations'' is every bit as shockingly unacceptable as anything Muslims previously may have done to so-called ''Christians'' who took the Christian-message of VENGEANCE (?) to full advantage once they could get into their own killing fields.
Nationalism in the Balkans and elsewhere is a disgrace to humanity and guilty of the foullest war crimes.
The fascists who brought us Srebrenica and the like, call themselves ''Christians'' of course!

Europe will die from its own poison Gianni. You are right to say fascistic nationalism is the cause we can't seem to integrate this continent. It is a product of bad education. Our perspectives must evolve. Government and capital are married in an unwholesome marriage. I can't stop asking myself, are these politicians that shallow that they don't see that "all this" is not or are they aware, the see "it" but they are helpless and are afraid to ask the right people for help.

Or we can allow evolution to fix everything by following its unrelentless way. Muslims will flock Europe. The next few centuries will be marked by skirmishes between Europeans who are going to amass under the umbrella of Christianity and Muslims who are going to forget their past nationalities by way of mixing. Eventually Christians (i am torn to assume the religion standpoint now) given their lax ways and apathy towards raising a family, will descend at equal odds with Muslims.

What about African immigrants? They want to be part of this picture too. Given their jolly spirit I mean their belonging to either of these faiths, they will go both ways and keep a balance of sorts. Now, we need some folks from Central Asia and Chinese and we are in for a smooth ride to mix the world into one human race.

"Commemorations of the centenary in the region have been surprisingly low-key."

Seriosuly T.J.?
I believe you provided the reason for the "surprisingly low-key" commemoration in the previous paragraph:

"The wars cost perhaps 200,000 lives and reshaped the map of south-eastern Europe. They ushered in an era of ethnic cleansing and population exchanges, which saw millions lose their homes and ancient communities uprooted and dispersed."

Isn't the Commemoration of the Balkans wars the equivalent of Gemrmany commemorating the takeover of Sudetenland?

Just for information - why was the return of Sudetenland a bad thing? Because the Germans then turned out to be the bad boys of the neighbourhood and wanted more?
Do you know what has been the percentage of Germans in Sudetenland when it was returned?

It was a war of aggression not one of self-defense. Those are never a good thing. Also, when analyzing a war one has to take into consideration the consequences. The Sudetenland was just an excuse to swallow all of the Czech Republic much like the swallowing of Kosova by Serbia due to a minority of Serbs living there.